The Effects of a Videoconferencing Implementation Project on Educators' Level of Concern in Southwest Michigan Schools
Problem. Two-way, interactive videoconferencing is emerging as an important technology tool for K-12 educators. The challenge is to identify and describe successful implementation. Educator concerns related to implementation may inhibit success. The focus of this study of a federally funded videoconferencing project is to address the factors that influence educators' level of concern. Method. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) Stages of Concern (SoC) instrument was administered to measure the level of concern of two cohorts of participants. Data related to project, including number of connections, district and building technical support, professional development, and equipment reliability were also collected. One-way repeated measures of analysis of variance was used to determine if change took place in the Stages of Concern responses while canonical correlation and multiple regression were used to examine the relationship between level of concern and factors thought to be related to project implementation (e.g. number of connections, equipment reliability, etc.). Results. Overall, approximately 86% of the participants were at levels 1-3 on the measure of levels of concern at the beginning of the project. At the end of the project implementation period (at posttest), about 84% were at levels 4-5. Canonical correlation analysis indicated that level of concern and number of connections were significantly associated with professional development hours, building tech support and equipment reliability ( rc = 0.81, p = 0.001). Higher levels of concern (-0.88) and a larger number of connections (-0.71) are associated with higher professional development hours (-0.60), better building tech support (-0.42), and higher equipment reliability (-0.69). However, equipment reliability (β = 0.59) is the best predictor of participants' level of concern. By itself, equipment reliability accounted for 42% ( r = 0 .65) of the variance in participants' levels of concern. Conclusions. The activities in the project in this study resulted in improved levels of concernfor the project participants. Improved levels of concern and increased number of connections result from higher levels of equipment reliability, adequate building-level technical support, and a high level of professional development with equipment reliability having the most impact. It is essential that as videoconferencing projects are implemented, leaders at all levels address these factors.
Education, Educational Methods, Elementary Education and Teaching
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations